European Contract Law in the Digital Age

The book offers an overview of the interactions between digital technologies and contract law, focusing largely on the two Proposals of the EU Commission of 2016 on digital contracting and digital contents.

European Contract Law in the Digital Age

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European Contract Law in the Digital Age offers an overview of the interactions between digital technologies and contract law and takes into account the two (late) 2015 EU Commission proposals on digital contracting and digital content. The book goes beyond these proposals and is grouped around the three pillars of an architecture of contract law in the digital age: the regulatory framework; digital interventions over the life-cycle of the contract; and digital objects of contracting.

The discussion of the regulatory framework looks at the platforms used for digital contracting – such as Airbnb – which are particularly important instruments for the formation of digital contracts. In describing the life-cycle of the contract, this book shows how four key technologies (digital platforms, Big Data analytics, artificial intelligence, and blockchain) are being used at different stages of the contractual process, from the screening for contractual partners to formation, enforcement and interpretation. Furthermore, digitally facilitated contracting increasingly relates to digital content – for instance software or search engines – as the object of the contract but while this area has notably been shaped by the proposed Directive on Contracts for the Supply of Digital Content, this work shows that important questions remain unanswered.

This book highlights how the digital dimension opens a new chapter in the concept of contracting, both questioning and revisiting many of its core concepts. It is a reliable resource on topical developments for everyone interested in digital technologies and contract law.

Stefan Grundmann is Professor of European Private Law, Transnational Law and Legal Theory at Humboldt University, Berlin and the European University Institute, Florence. He has written books and commentaries in several languages in contract law, banking law and company law, as well as in private law theory. He is President of the Society of European Contract Law.

Over de reeks

European Contract Law and Theory

The Society of European Contract Law (SECOLA) promotes the development and understanding of European contract law including its economic, sociological and intellectual historic relation in theory and in practice. Further, SECOLA provides an international platform for the discussion of developing and proposed contract law in Europe.

In this spirit, the book series European Contract Law and Theory (EUCOLATH) combines dogmatic thinking in comparative and EU law with strong social theory considerations and makes the results of the discussions of leading scholars and practitioners publicly available.

Guidelines for the submission of a manuscript or publication proposal can be found here. For the series’ house-style guide, please click here.

Editorial Board

Prof. Dr iur. Dr phil. Stefan Grundmann, LLM (Berkeley)Professor of Private, Commercial and International Law at Humboldt-University, Berlin, and Professor of Transnational Law at the European University Institute, Florence. He specialises in national and European Contract, Banking and Company Law and Private Law Theory.http://www.eui.eu/DepartmentsAndCentres/Law/People/Professors/Grundmann.aspx

Prof. Hugh CollinsVinerian Professor of English Law, All Souls College, Oxford, and Fellow of the British Academy.

Prof. Dr Fernando Gómez Pomar Professor of Civil Law and Law and Economics at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. His main research interests lie in the law and economics of Contract and Tort, the efficiency of judicial systems, and legal fragmentation and harmonization.http://www.upf.edu/dretcivil/professorat/gomez-p.html

Dr Jacobien RutgersReader in Private Law and Private International Law at the Free University (VU) Amsterdam.